


Scar To Burden

by starrylitme



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa Zero, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Body Horror, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Complicated Relationships, Gen, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Scars, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27494203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrylitme/pseuds/starrylitme
Summary: That scar is all that remains of Matsuda Yasuke after the simulation was shut down.(In which Hinata has to deal with Matsuda's ghost. Post-Canon.)
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Matsuda Yasuke
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41
Collections: Mixed_Fics





	Scar To Burden

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote some MatsuHina for a friend and ended up using the prompt "Scar to Remember". The results were this. I should probably write other MatsuHina, hhhh. I did initially want to write MatsuKamu with Ghost!Matsuda, but Hinata has his own fraught relationship with the guy. I should explore them more. :V

“If you’re gonna keep staring at it,” Matsuda griped. “You might as well just take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

Hinata froze immediately, fingertips lingering on his head scars. In the reflection, he sees Matsuda huff. Sees him stride close, clapping a hand on his trembling shoulder.

“What’s up?” Matsuda asked coldly, leaning in and pressing up against him, sending chills down his spine. “The hell is with that stupid fucking face?”

Matsuda’s thumb presses against the scar, right above Hinata’s ear, where Matsuda’s touch had lingered before.

“You look like you’ve seen a _ghost_.”

* * *

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The specter snorts, crossing his legs the way the living Matsuda Yasuke so often did. Hinata tries not to let his gaze trail from the other’s face, not to the legs fading out to nothing and certainly not to the chest under Matsuda’s crossed arms, which looked like it had been stomped in. Over and over. But rather than the expected blood and gore, it was faded around the edges, as if the being were just a wax replica. Except wax didn’t huff at him like that.

“Don’t tell me you’d rather I was someone else,” Matsuda sneezed. “Upset I’m not your stupid fucking girlfriend? God, don’t tell me you’d prefer Junko.”

“Absolutely not,” Hinata snapped, bristling. “It’s just—why now?”

“Dunno.” In typical Matsuda fashion, he was just shrugged at like he wasn’t worth a second longer of thought. “Just felt like it. It’s super fucking boring being dead, y’know. I can only read over people’s shoulders. I can’t eat. I can’t even sleep. Sucks. So fucking bad. Makes me wish necromancy was a talent, not gonna lie.”

Hinata did feel Kamukura Izuru stir inside him. Whether with curiosity or something else, Hinata steeled himself against it.

_He’s gone. Matsuda’s gone. That he’s even here is probably just—_

“You think I’m an hallucination,” Matsuda droned. “I’m not. Ask me a question, fucker. I’ll prove it.”

“Proof?” Hinata had to laugh at that, mirthlessly as it was. “Like what?”

“Your stupid fucking boyfriend? He’s with the meathead coach right now. Being lugged about like a particular sad sack of potatoes after collapsing during a jog.” Matsuda shows his teeth. “That sniveling not-quite-nurse will be treating him by the time you rush over.”

_Komaeda isn’t—_

Hinata got up immediately.

(To his utter despair, Matsuda was completely right. He didn’t even know what to say in between Komaeda swearing that he was alright and apologizing for the trouble as Tsumiki insisted she was doing well in treating him, _don’t worry, don’t worry, why do you look so pale, Hinata-san, y-you look like you’ve seen a **ghost** —_)

* * *

Despite clearly keeping tabs on everyone there, Hinata doesn’t see Matsuda tailing anyone else. Hell, he doesn’t even see Matsuda outside of his cottage. He wonders if Matsuda can control whether or not he’s seen, and he’s too disturbed to ponder it.

This, unfortunately, doesn’t stop Kamukura Izuru, which makes Hinata feel all kinds of skin-crawlingly disgusting. Makes him also want to claw out his skull, to rip the stitches open if he could.

“ _Jeez_ , what’s up your rectum?”

_What do you fucking **think** , Matsuda?_ Rather than spit out the words, Hinata glares at the ghost over his shoulder. He’s trying to read a book Sonia lent him—but of course Matsuda’s too damn clever to buy into the ruse.

“You look constipated,” Matsuda pointed out, cutting through him with such ease. Always capable of cutting through him with well-practiced fingers and an even more skillfully sharp tongue. “You’re so fucking obvious about it, too.”

Hinata wanted to seethe, but willed himself to keep a straight, unimpressed face.

“Boring read, huh,” Matsuda droned, reflecting that same expression back. “Is it because it’s predictable or because it’s just not to your taste?”

“It’s...” Hinata bit back the word boring. His temper flared, and he forced that back down as well for good measure. “It’s hard to focus on anything when _you’re_ breathing down my neck. In a manner of speaking.”

The dead man— _boy_ , really, Matsuda fucking died before he reached adulthood—just quirked an eyebrow at him. The corner of his lips curled into a truly ugly smirk, accompanied by a snort.

“A _manner_ of **_speaking_**!” Matsuda rose his voice to an annoyingly nasal high-pitched tone. “Isn’t that book about a fucking doctor who plays god?” He blows past before Hinata can think twice, flipping the pages furiously. “You didn’t even get to the best part! Look here!”

He brandishes it with mock theatrics and a sneer.

“ _They shove him back,_ ” Matsuda intones, voice low and grave. “ _Down, down, down he went. They watch him fall. He, who built them, who built up everything—he who looked so much smaller when splattered to bits._ ”

Hinata said nothing. He just waited until Matsuda fizzled.

“You piece of shit.” Matsuda still got out one last mirthless chuckle. “You’ve already read it, huh? You fucking started fiddling with it, knowing I’d get fucking curious about it. You knew, you knew, you _knew_.”

Hinata didn’t say anything to that, either.

“Was it satisfying?” Matsuda hissed. “Was it cathartic? Watching that bitch not only fall to pieces but also _give up_?”

“She was content, Matsuda.” Hinata simply brushed him off. “She was satisfied with the outcome.”

Matsuda’s form simmers with so much anger that it blurs his edges and especially blurs his expression. Like this, you might not even be able to tell that the once neurologist was in tears. What grew especially jagged from these distortions was the gaping maw in his chest.

Despite looking less and less like a once-person, this being couldn’t be further from dissipating completely. Hinata could hear his own heartbeat, and what a wretched sound that was in this utter, tumultuous silence.

“...sorry,” he finally whispers, just for something new. Just to keep himself from trying to dig his nails into his scar. The ghost reshapes itself, only slightly. It drifts close, and Hinata sucked in his breath. “I’m sorry, Matsuda, I... I-I just...”

Matsuda’s fingertips, practiced and cold and gentle as always, brush against his forehead scars.

“You’re unbearable to look at with this,” Matsuda murmured as Hinata’s breath ended up hitching. Like this, like _this_ , the ghost of the guy who helped ruined him really did look like quite the dream.

“You think?” he couldn’t help but ask. “The lines were clean. The stiches tidy. Evenly spaced apart.” Those cold fingers curled against his jaw, and he just leans into that deathly touch. “It’s a work of art, isn’t it? On the outside and the inside.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Rather than with fire or ice, Matsuda’s words are airy and weightless. “Don’t say such creepy bullshit.”

When Hinata does reach up to grip the other’s hand, he phases right through. Because, obviously he does.

Obviously.

* * *

“Have you seen anything strange lately?”

“Mm? You’ll have to be more specific.” Komaeda, when perked up and bright-eyed, is especially alert. “Has something happened, Hinata-kun?”

“No.” The lie comes so easily it’s despicable. “I was just asking.”

_I’m not the only person that Matsuda’s looking after._

“It’s a strange question,” Komaeda said, cajoling. Hinata still doesn’t bite, even when Komaeda seems serious. “Nothing happened at all?”

“Something is always happening,” he pointed out. “There is no need for suspicion over a simple question.”

“Hahaha. Oh, Hinata-kun. When did you get so _unbearable_?”

_When, indeed?_

Somehow, even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure he’d know how to answer. Maybe he’s always been this way. Maybe he’s only like this because he got on a table and let a guy his own age cut open his skull under the slimy supervision of a farcical medical staff. That same guy had been—

Not...nice. Once upon a time. But, maybe, just maybe, they had a relationship close to being friends. Matsuda would smack him with books and demand food. Would often drag him off-campus and distract him from everything for a good hour. Matsuda was grumpy and abrasive, absolutely not the kind of person he’d normally want to associate with. He was cruel, too, up until Hinata finalized the contract.

It was only after the stupid simulation that Hinata realized that Matsuda never wanted any of this. That Matsuda did care, especially in the way he made the procedure swift and simple...and especially in the way he’d stare at his head scars with the most pained eyes.

_How boringly simple Matsuda Yasuke always was. It’s no wonder he had so many regrets._

“If you do see something, let me know,” Hinata said. “I’ll take care of it.”

Komaeda gives him a look, and Hinata wonders about Matsuda’s regrets involving him. Involving damn near everyone in the class that Enoshima Junko got her claws into.

_Selfishly, I don’t..._

* * *

“I don’t want you to worry about them. They’re my responsibility now.”

“Mmhm,” Matsuda hummed, unconvinced as he draped himself over the bed. He was playing with the pages of a manga that Hinata purposefully left out. “Possessive, are you? Fucked up.”

“I’m the one with this.” Hinata tapped his scar. “This is all that remains of you after the simulation was forcibly shut down.”

“Maybe that’s why you can see me,” Matsuda muttered, sounding wholly disinterested. “And here I just fucking thought Kamukura Izuru was an Ultimate Medium or something.”

Kamukura Izuru was. However, Hinata has no intention of being the same.

“I want to be the only one that has to deal with the burden of your memory. You’re right. I’m possessive.”

“Just like _her_.” Matsuda sneered at him, pointing to where his own heart would be if it hadn’t been stomped to dust. “You’re a piece of work, alright.”

“That’s thanks to you.”

Matsuda chuckles softly under his breath. It’s not just mirthless, it’s downright miserable. His form flickers, too. Hinata idly rubs over the swollen scar tissue, gaze not leaving the other for a second.

“Take a picture,” Matsuda says, flat and irritated. “It’ll last longer.”

_I’ll keep this image just as I’ve kept your marks and memory._


End file.
